Here's hoping it works for you, because this is an important article.
The latest and perhaps most powerful example came just before midnight on Wednesday, when the court ruled 5 to 4 to leave in place a novel Texas law that bars most abortions in the state — a momentous development in the decades-long judicial battle over abortion rights.
The court spent less than three days dealing with the case. There were no oral arguments before the justices. The majority opinion was unsigned and one paragraph long. In a dissent, Justice Elena Kagan said the case illustrated “just how far the court’s ‘shadow-docket’ decisions may depart” from the usual judicial process and said use of the shadow docket “every day becomes more unreasoned, inconsistent and impossible to defend.” [snip]
Criticism of the use of the shadow docket has been building for years but rose to a new level with the Texas abortion case. The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York, denounced the ruling, saying it allowed what he portrayed as a “flagrantly unconstitutional law” to take force and calling it “shameful” that the court’s majority did so without hearing arguments or issuing any signed opinion. He announced hearings.
“Because the court has now shown repressive state legislatures how to game the system, the House Judiciary Committee will hold hearings to shine a light on the Supreme Court’s dangerous and cowardly use of the shadow docket,” he said in a statement. “Decisions like this one chip away at our democracy.”
Linked in the article is written testimony of Samuel Bray, a University of Notre Dame law professor who testified about the shadow docket this summer before President Biden’s commission studying possible Supreme Court changes:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Bray-Statement-for-Presidential-Commission-on-the-Supreme-Court-2021.pdf
More for those who can't get past the paywall:
https://dworkenlaw.com/what-is-the-shadow-docket-and-why-is-it-important/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/31/supreme-court-us-cases-shadow-docket
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/shadow-docket-use-in-supreme-court-abortion-ruling-fuels-angst
eta - great find, BeckyDem! Thanks for posting it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
